Unfortunately my Coder is not online to install DIGG and other SB link Plugins — so I am giving the links here–

Please Digg it and vote on other sites too if you think my answer is correct to Rand Fishkin’s un-necessary/illogical tirade against web directories.

DIGG IT

Vote On Netscape

Rand Fishkin, the owner of SEOMOZ
– a web marketing or search engine optimization company based in Seattle, has recently launched a vicious attack on web directories in his blog post titled Whiteboard Friday - “You’re Not On The List. According to Mr. Fishkin, webmasters must first do a little bit of research about the quality of web directories before they submit ( this is very true which I already  discussed on my previous blog post titled -Google and Relevancy and Role of Modern Web Directories

). But his follow up points really rattled the hornets nest. In one of his replies to a commentator, he advices his readers that- money spent for listing on web directories is money wasted.

” Brian - I seriously doubt there’s any harm you can cause, it’s just that there’s a better use for your 10 minutes and $20.”

I am not an SEO expert, just a normal directory owner and a very avid reader and follower of everything related to SEO. Since my online life begun in 2006, I have been trying to understand the basic nuances of search engine optimization. Whenever I find time – I try to visit and read Matt Cutts Blog, searchengineguide , searchengineland, searchenginelowdown, Google’s Blog, Yahoo Search Blog , Ask Blog and few more.

I must confess – I have gathered a few basic knowledge about how to optimize a website. I do all optimization myself and my sites are ranking very high on Google and Yahoo for my terms.

So what is SEO?

Search Engine Optimizer according to Google.

How do I optimize my sites?

From what I understand –there are two principal ways to optimize a site –

On-page- Optimization that means making your site very easily crawlable by search engine bots (Check what Google says) by designing the site structure properly with proper meta tags. Just follow simple guidelines and make your site structure accordingly. Another very important point to note about on-page optimization is to put as many or as much related unique contents to your website as you can which will make your site different and valuable than others.

On-page optimization also includes other factors like domain relevancy and site title. If you are thinking of a website in a highly competitive keyword niche, try to buy a domain as close to your main keyword as possible. Make the title of the site with the keyword. This makes search engine optimization job 50% easier.

Second SEO technique is –Off-page optimization. This involves acquiring related links from other sites to your site. One very crucial thing to note here is promotion of anchor words. When you promote your site and get link from other sites – remember to get a link with the words/phrases that is most relevant to your sites. This will make search engine bots to find your site when some one searches for the words/phrases that you are optimizing. Once your site is well known to Google, it will automatically rank other words/phrases that are relevant to your site as is illustrated by Google in its Google Technology page.

Now – most webmasters have this basic SEO knowledge. So why did I mention it?

I mentioned this because SEOMOZ or Rand Fishkin, despite being one of the top most SEO companies forgot these basic facts while writing an article against paid directories! Mr. Fishkin gave example of Aviva Directory, a market leader in the directory industry to prove how that directory is nothing but useless because it does not rank well for its own title “Information – Aviva Web Directory ‘ ( He tried it by removing Aviva’s brand name Aviva) . That is just ridiculous to say the least. Aviva Directory is one of the top 10 most respected and well promoted directories on the World Wide Web which has been recognized by Google by giving it an authority status whereby Google is showing sitelinks when someone types “Aviva Directory’ on the Google search bar. It does provide real high quality web resource with over 30,000 websites carefully included by its full-time editors.

Now that Mr. Fishkin thinks Aviva Directory is not a quality directory, it raises few questions against his SEO judgements, ability, honesty, and overall reliability of SEOMOZ as a premiere SEO agency! John Scott, another great SEO exponent and owner of Internet Marketing Blog has raised questions about Rand Fishkin and his method of rating a web directory based on search engine ranking authority logic on this V7N Forum thread — http://www.v7n.com/forums/web-directory-issues/62644-rand-fishkin-vs-aviva.html

John Scott is definitely asking his methodology of judging web directories based on search engine ranking for certain keywords and sub-pages/categories. Mr. Rand also cites inbound .gov and .edu links as ranking criteria for directories. Whereas, there is no doubt these sites are trustworthy and authoritative, according to Matt Cutts - it is a myth among Old School SEOs that these links are given extra weight by Google. So there is nothing to support the claims by Mr. Fishkin and those views expressed in his post are imaginary and just his personal vendetta against web directories.

To further illustrate how faulty Rand Fishkin’s methodology – please check yourself where does DMOZ rank for terms like travel web directory, health web directory, family web directory, business web directory, resource web directory, internet resource directory—the list of keywords can go on. You can also remove the word “ web“ from those keywords, phrases and see how many of those directories that he is bashing ranks far above than DMOZ. What a ridiculous idea to judge a directory on the basis of its SERPs! So, according to his methodology, those directories have far greater authority than DMOZ. And to show more frustration and hypocrisy of Mr. Fishkin –please read his blog posts and comment replies where he says he bribes into DMOZ listing. What a POOR sense of morality!

Let me do some ridicule (joke) at Rand Fishkin’s methodology–

I own a web directory titled “Page Rank Luck Directory“

According to his theory of rating a directory - I followed his methodology –

I tried SERPs of my directory with keywords –

Page Rank Directory

Rank Directory

Page Directory

Page Rank ( is this keyword competitive enough for ya??)

Surprisingly I rank within top 100 for all those keywords and except “Page Rank” I rank on first page for all other words. I am hitting Google Data Centre -http://72.14.235.104/

Not only that — I rank on top page of Google for keyword ” Strong Directory” for which I never optimised and which is just an anchor word of one of my advertiser. I also rank No 26th for the Keyword - “Travel Web Directory” whereas DOMZ ranks -130+ for the same Keyword. According to your logic/methodology — my directory is far-far better than DMOZ in this niche.So why the hell you bribe those DMOZ editors wheres you could try to submit to my directory if your client’s site is of qualitty ( please mark the word QUALITY) for a dismall review fee? I may approve if it is quality– and refuse if it is crap!

Actually, there has been a bit of history going on between web directories and Rand Fishkin for sometime. SEOMOZ has invented a site ranking tool called Page Strength which was meant to have broader ranking matrix than Google’s Page Rank matrix ( only taking inbound links into account) and Bob Mutch’s IQL matrix ( only taking incoming .edu & .gov, Yahoo directory & DMOZ links into account) by taking into account many other factors such as links from Domain Age, Alexa Ranking, Wikipedia, DMOZ Directory, Del.Icio.US, Technorati links and few more. This tool was lying in obscurity till Jeff, owner of Aviva Directory started to use it for ranking web directories in his Directories Blog. Soon, the PS tool of SEOMOZ became a raze among webmasters in general and web directory owners in particular.

After seeing this, and realizing the potential, Rand Fishkin and his SEOMOZ started to charge to use the tool that was once free for all. Now, normal users were limited to use the tool only once per day and unlimited usage was reserved for the Premium Members who could use it as much as they want. Coincidently or otherwise ( hint!) – the tool started to malfunction and most people were of the impression that Rand Fishkin was after money. It resulted into some detailed review of Page Strength tool and SEOMOZ on Digital Point Forum. Mr. Fishkin has been termed a Quick Buck Crew (QBC), a new term introduced by Rob and Jeff started a debate on it on his blog.

Mr. Fishkin’s view of dismissing web directories and they being waste of money and time is totally unfounded and is against what Google advises to webmasters to submit their sites to related web directories. Matt Cutts also endorses quality web directories that has high editorial integrity.

Matt Cutts says –

Google Webmasters Guidelines Says -

Submit your site to relevant directories such as the Open Directory Project and Yahoo!, as well as to other industry-specific expert sites.

So all these problems have been result of Mr. Fishkin’s own creations and his lack of Public Relations ability, his inability to communicate properly with his fellow webmasters and his arrogancy because he thinks he is best as he has personal terms with Matt Cutts ( I don’t think its going to help as what I gather from my experience- Matt is a man of integrity and he won’t favor a friend for his foolishness over TRUTH)who picked his SEOMOZ as Best Search Engine Community Blog of 2006. It is known to all that- when someone gets out of his limit, it is the start to fall back down-to-earth also.

The question now is – what is Mr Rand Fishkin and his SEOMOZ capable of!!.What do they do for their big multinational clients in exchange of hundreds of thousands of dollars they charge! Simple, they do simple research work on the best targeted words/phrases for their clients and buy Google Adwords & Pay Per Click (PPC) advertising, they also buy sponsored links from related authority sites with the anchor words – that drives huge traffic to their clients. Most Matt Cutts disciples talk about gaining organic links through social marketing and netwroking sites like Diggs, Slashdot, Netscape, Viral Marketing ( I thought I had viral fever )etc. But experienced webmasters know how hard it is to put even one article on the front pages of these sites and without going to front page - one can not expect to get too many organic links. And how can you put so many of your clients’ sites again and again on the fron pages of these sites? There must be something fishy that goes on behind the doors. Mr Fishkins’ integrity as a Good SEO can be gauged by his own blog post where he says –

“Selective – it’s hard to get in, because the editors carefully review the quality and value of including each site that’s submitted. Yahoo! & DMOZ would be good examples of selective directories (though DMOZ is often far too picky, and my main strategy at that site used to be bribing editors, so they’re not a perfect choice). Other directories may be even tougher to get on, like Nature.com’s recommended links or the Forbes Best of the Web and some might be easier, like Emily Chang’s eHub or Business.com. My view is that all of these provide solid value.”

He bribes DMOZ editors to get his clients sites listed and he talks about good ethical SEOing and advises people not to list in web directories. Those multinational companies just waste their money by hiring SEOs like Mr. Fishkin who could do anything to keep their clients and money. Google specifically warns against SEO firms that do not follow Google’s ranking guidelines.

Is creating cheap, irresponsible (without valid prrof) controversies at regular intervals at the expense of others -yous main SEO ( read traffic) strategy? Well - I have certainly learnt from you– –but I am not irresponsible– all my points carry facts and link to proofs.

Thank you

You comments on the post is very much welcome.

Every webmaster dreams of seeing his or her website on top of search results for the targeted keywords or key phrases. But to achieve that, webmasters have to optimize their sites through a method called Search Engine Optimization (SEO) in Search Engine parlance.

Today, Google is the most dominant Search Engine on the World Wide Web with above 70% of total searchers using it to find the information they want on the internet. Google uses a sophisticated technology whereby its bots/robots try to find the number of links pointing to a particular site that is related to the searched keyword or phrase. Of course mere numbers of links are not enough to put a site on top. The relevance of the site linking to it along with relevant contents are also very important.

Here comes the role of human edited web directories. These web directories are structured in such ways that they are like Pyramids –having categories and sub-categories related to any field on the web. Webmasters, whatever field their website might deal with can find a related backlink from a web directory. They work as the stepping stones for new websites by providing the much needed backlinks for quick indexing or crawling by search engine spiders.

Of late, there has been lots of criticism of web directories and many have termed them as link farms offering just backlinks to web sites and nothing more. While, the argument holds some truth – it is highly inaccurate. With the exponential growth of the internet and the flourishing web directory industry, many greedy webmasters are starting web directories just to cash in on the phenomenon. Most of these directories free directories made for AdSense and are mirror sites of others and owned by the same webmaster. Google is well aware of this fact and fortunately it is dealing with them swiftly by de-indexing those sites.

However, there are some high quality web directories that offer valuable web resources to the surfers and also quality listing opportunity to webmasters. Aviva Directory, Alive Directory, Best Of The Web,  are some of the high quality web directories. The most common feature of these quality web directories is that, they charge a nominal fee to review a particular web site. While many oppose these kind of fees charged by these web directories, owners of these directories have argue that – they have to charge a nominal fee for reviewing websites because

1) It costs to maintain high quality editors to review/edit listings.

2) It costs a lot to hire SEO specialists and maintain the quality.

3) It cost a lot to install extra modules so lots of additional information about listings may be offered to visitors.

4) It works as a deterrent against web spammers.

Few months back, Google initiated a crackdown on Paid Links and some web masters reported renowned web directories for selling paid links on Matt Cutts’ Blog (Head of Anti-Spam Bureau of Google). But they were disappointed by Matt Cutts’ reply who endorsed the review fee policy of quality web directories by saying-

”

Q: Hey, as long as we’re talking about directories, can you talk about the role of directories, some of whom charge for a reviewer to evaluate them?
A: I’ll try to give a few rules of thumb to think about when looking at a directory. When considering submitting to a directory, I’d ask questions like:
- Does the directory reject urls? If every url passes a review, the directory gets closer to just a list of links or a free-for-all link site.
- What is the quality of urls in the directory? Suppose a site rejects 25% of submissions, but the urls that are accepted/listed are still quite low-quality or spammy. That doesn’t speak well to the quality of the directory.
- If there is a fee, what’s the purpose of the fee? For a high-quality directory, the fee is primarily for the time/effort for someone to do a genuine evaluation of a url or site.Those are a few factors I’d consider. If you put on your user hat and ask “Does this seem like a high-quality directory to me?” you can usually get a pretty good sense as well, or ask a few friends for their take on a particular directory.

”

There is always a dilemma among webmasters whether to submit to hundreds of free web directories that cost little by way of submission fee or list in a few quality web directories that might cost higher depending on the number of directories one wants to list. To find out the answer, John Scott, CEO of V7N Internet Marketing Resource –did an experiment.

• He put two similar sites with similar contents (not duplicate) online.
• Submitted one site to 700 Free directories
• Submitted another site to 5 quality paid directories.
• After couple of months – the results started to show.
• The site he submitted to 5 quality paid directories ranked much higher on SERPs than the site which was submitted to 700 free directories not to mention higher Page Rank and higher traffic to the former!

So his experiment proves that 5 high quality directories can perform much better than all those free directories which are just taking up web space.

But all webmasters must remember that, not all Free directories are useless. Some of the high quality free directories that come into my mind are DMOZ (ODP), World Site Index , Web World Index, Abilogic. Webmasters have to have a very clear-cut strategy while dealing with web directories. They have to remember one thing though – IT IS QUALITY THAT COUNTS, NOT THE QUANTITY.

Some Use Full List of Web Directories

1. Aviva’s List of Strongest Directories based on SEOMOZ‘ Page Strength (PS) metric.
2. Bob Mutch’s list of directories based on Inbound Quality of Links
3. VS Dans List of SEO Friendly Directories
4. Jim Westergren’s List of over 700 Directories
5. Directory Critic -the watch-dob of the directory industry has a huge list of web directories